And baby, it's cold outside
by Sea03
Summary: Shameless Christmas solangelo fluff. In which Will enjoys Christmas a little too much and Nico gets cold easily. Crossposted on Archive of our Own.


It had been three and a half months since Gaia was defeated.

Three and a half long months of recovery and rebuilding, of coming to the realization that the war was over, that they were _safe_.

It had been two and a half months since Nico had made the decision to stay at Camp Halfblood. He'd considered leaving; even went so far as to pack his belongings and leave the camp grounds, but he'd soon realized that Camp Halfblood was the only true home he'd ever had. Sure, he'd lived in Italy when he was young, but that was a distant memory. He'd also stayed in the Lotus Hotel for years -_too_ many years- but that had passed by in a blur. For the majority of his life, he had simply wandered. And now that the war was over and he didn't have to fear for his life every second of the day, he was lost.

So Camp Halfblood was the only place he could turn to.

It wasn't too bad staying at the camp, considering that most of the campers had left for their homes and families for the school year. The camp was much quieter without the Hermes kids constantly talking, the continuous metal on metal, grinding sound that came from the Hephaestus cabin, and the dull twang of arrow after arrow hitting a dummy that originated from somewhere behind the Apollo kids' cabin.

Will, on the other hand, had decided to stay at camp for completely different reasons. Usually, he went home to return to school and live with his mother for the rest of the year until the summer rolled back around. But after the battle with Gaia, and so many other members of the Apollo cabin having to leave camp, he'd decided as the head of his cabin to stay back and help tend to those who were still injured from fighting. It was a hard decision for him, as he usually looked forward to being back with his mother, but he was comforted by the fact that he wouldn't be completely alone for the year. He'd felt a brew of confusing feelings when he had heard that Nico di Angelo had also decided to stay at Camp Halfblood for the year.

When Will had first seen Nico years ago, his first impression of the boy was that he was scrawny, scruffy, and maybe just a little bit geeky (Mythomagic didn't seem quite so fun when you knew that monsters really did exist). But as time went on, and Will learned the news about Bianca's death, he started paying more attention to Nico. Watched as the excitable kid around his age with olive skin and short black hair matured into a quiet, brooding boy with sickly pale skin and hair that was far too long.

And then he was gone. Just as Will had started to build up the courage to talk to him, Nico di Angelo was out of his life and his mind, for quite some time.

Until recently, when Nico had finally returned to camp, and well; three days in the infirmary with Will Solace was more than enough time to begin melting the icy walls that Nico had built up around himself.

—-

Sometime during the last three months, Will had managed to convince Nico that it would be a good idea to have him help around the infirmary in his free time. How, Nico had no idea, but here he was, taping a bandaid on the pointer finger of a little girl with pigtails- he assumed a daughter of Hecate, seeing as she was in the infirmary for accidentally summoning fire during one of her lessons.

As soon as the bandaid was taped in place, the little girl jumped out of her seat on one of the temporary cots and flashed Nico a big, toothy grin. "Thanks!" she exclaimed before running out of the room, back to her daily lessons. Nico smiled softly as the girl left the room with a skip in her step.

"Woah, is that _my_ sunshine I see smiling? The Christmas spirit brings out the best in everyone, I guess."

Nico scowled at the blonde who'd entered the entrance to the infirmary wearing just a camp t-shirt and a pair of worn jeans. "Don't call me that, Solace."

Will was unperturbed. "It fits you," he replied easily, looking Nico straight in the eyes.

Nico stared right back at the taller boy until he felt his cheeks begin to warm. He averted his eyes and straightened up in his seat, rearranging his features so that his lips were turned downwards in a frown again. "Aren't you a son of Apollo? How are you not cold?"

Will shrugged as he finally left from his spot under the doorway. "I'm not cold _because_ I'm a son of Apollo, di Angelo." The tanned boy gathered up his medical tools as Nico stood up and stretched his arms above his head, tired from another day of helping Will in the infirmary. Will purposefully avoided looking at the pale sliver of skin that showed when Nico's black sweatshirt lifted up slightly.

Will cleared his throat to try and relieve the awkward tension in the room. Although the two boys had become close, Will wasn't confident enough to say they were friends and his more-than-small infatuation with Nico caused him to doubt himself around the shorter boy often. It wasn't like he could stop himself from liking Nico; the moment he'd saw him in that orange Hawaiian shirt, there was no backing out.

Will continued to clean up the infirmary while Nico walked towards the entrance of the building. Distractedly, Nico looked out of the window that overlooked the entire camp that was placed right near the entry way.

Nico pulled on his heavy woolen overcoat as he glared at the forbidding looking clouds that loomed over the camp. He knew that it wouldn't snow or rain, it was virtually impossible, but that didn't stop the weather from becoming almost unbearably cold.

And Nico hated the cold, almost as much as he hated being pitied. That was a hell of a lot.

Unfortunately, he couldn't stay cooped up in the warmth of his cabin all day since Jason had come back to visit. He'd tried, more times than he could count, but whenever he stayed in his cabin for more than four hours straight, a certain blonde haired son of Jupiter would always knock loudly on the door until Nico let him in. It was infuriating at times, but Nico found it a little bit nice that someone cared about him enough to make sure he got out every now and then. Not that he would ever admit that out loud, but still.

At the same moment that Nico had started buttoning up his coat, Will had finished shoving all of his tools into a leather doctor's bag and stuffing said bag into a corner of the room. He glanced at Nico quickly and joined him at the infirmary entrance.

"Hey, sunshine-"

Nico whirled around, an annoyed furrow beginning to crease his eyebrows. "I thought I told you to stop calling me-"

"You going to eat now?" Will continued smoothly, shooting a smug look in Nico's direction.

"No," Nico responded firmly, choosing to ignore how the golden haired boy had cut him off. He looked away, hands fumbling with the buttons on his coat. He cursed himself, angry that his fingers were always the first to get stiff when the temperature dropped below 60 degrees.

Will forged on, unwilling to drop the subject. "Why not?"

"Because I don't want to," he huffed, exasperated from a combination of his fingers refusing to work properly and an unrelenting Will Solace. He wasn't sure which one was worse.

Frustrated by Will's question, Nico dropped his fingers from the buttons, having given up on trying to properly put on his coat.

"You, uh, need some help with that?" Will asked curiously from behind him.

Nico pointedly ignored him, a little embarrassed that he couldn't fasten a few buttons on his coat but he could handle a Stygian iron sword with ease.

Will took Nico's silence as an invitation and grabbed Nico's collar from behind. When Nico spun around to face him, he immediately tried to shrug out of Will's grasp.

"What the hell?" he sputtered indignantly, still struggling to free himself. The young healer disregarded Nico's words and took it upon himself to begin clasping the buttons on Nico's coat himself.

Nico stood still, a frown twisting his lips as Will snapped each button in place.

Will suppressed a smile as he glanced up to see Nico's irritated expression. He swiftly fastened the last button and playfully tugged on the lapels of the shorter boy's coat. "There you go."

Nico jerked away from Will and crossed his arms. "Whatever, Solace," he grumbled unwillingly, pushing open the door of the infirmary.

Will followed behind the Italian boy with a satisfied smile and an odd sense of triumph boiling in his stomach.

—-

Will smiled as he left his cabin, pulling on a pair of old trainers as he shut the door behind him.  
>He shouted a quick goodbye to the other two children of Apollo who were in the cabin as he exited, a golden haired girl around two years younger than himself and a tall boy who looked to be about Percy's age. Neither of the two responded; they had both probably just gotten off from a night shift at the infirmary.<p>

As most of his siblings had gone home for the school year, it was pretty quiet inside the Apollo cabin. Thankfully, he had his job at the infirmary to keep him occupied without kids his own age to talk to; except for Nico, of course. But trying to have a real conversation with Nico proved to be a real challenge, especially since he had started arriving later and later to the infirmary every day.

The blonde haired boy made his way to the dining pavilion while going over his plans for the day. First, he was scheduled to have healing lessons with some of his older siblings that had stuck around for the year. After those lessons, he was stuck in the infirmary for pretty much the rest of the day, tending to other campers as needed and organizing files as Chiron had personally requested for him to do.

Will sighed as he caught sight of the Hades cabin on his way to eat an early breakfast. Will's lips pursed as he slowed down, and then stopped walking completely as he took in the Italian boy's home.

Compared to his own bright and sunny cabin, the cabin for children of Hades seemed to give off an indescribable air of danger, cemented in place by the ox skull that rested near the entrance of the cabin. Uneasiness pooled in the pit of Will's stomach as he started to walk again; although Nico and him had gotten closer in the past few months, the Hades cabin still gave him the creeps whenever he happened to pass by it.

He really had to talk to Nico about redecorating.

Later in the day, seeing as Will had finished reorganizing the medical files and had nobody to tend to in the infirmary, he decided to go and quickly grab a candy cane that he knew was on the miniature Christmas tree that some of the campers had set up a few weeks ago in the rec room. His sudden craving for the festive sweet may or may not have been influenced by the knowledge that Nico was usually sparring with the other kids at around this time.

Either way, Will made sure that his path to the rec room included a stop at the training grounds. When he arrived at the large, open grassy area, he immediately spotted a familiar head of tousled black hair. Will was just about to call out to Nico when he realized how deep into his conversation with another camper the Italian boy was. He seemed to be explaining something in depth to the other boy, gesturing towards his sword every now and then.

Will watched as Nico held his sword conformably in his hand, looking completely at ease with instructing three kids who looked barely older than himself. He smiled to himself as he began to walk away, deciding to go and look for Nico later.

Nico bit his lip and swore quietly to himself, feeling cold seep into his skin despite his desperate attempts to keep from freezing to death by crossing his arms to try and retain any last bit of warmth that remained in his body.

This morning, he'd been determined not to let the cold get to him and bundled in up in as many layers of clothing as humanly possible. However, the son of Hades had quickly realized that sparring with two t-shirts, three sweaters, a big overcoat and a pair of black gloves on did not work. At all. So, he was forced to strip down to one plain grey sweater that did absolutely _nothing_ to repel the cold.

Nico's teeth clacked together as he demonstrated the proper sparring stance to the three boys stood next to him. The three of them looked to be perfectly fine in this gods awful weather and mentally, he cursed them. Only one of them was a son of Apollo, and so, would be immune to the cold like Solace, but the other two were not.

He seemed to be the only one affected by this sudden cold wave.

Shaking his head to keep himself from dwelling on his frustrating inability to withstand the cold, Nico proceeded to demonstrate a typical sparring defense stance to the three boys. The three of them were all new campers and had arrived a little after the war with Gaia, so they had not yet been properly instructed. Nico had no idea how he'd been roped into becoming a sparring instructor, but it was better than laying around his cabin doing nothing or being stuck in the infirmary all day with Will.

Nico's cheeks burned slightly as his mind wandered to the cheerful son of Apollo.

Well, maybe spending time in the infirmary wasn't _so_ bad.

—-  
>Nico entered the infirmary with a sullen expression on his face and the beginnings of a pout forming on his lips.<p>

He had spent a total of four hours on the training field with those three boys, drilling the correct form and technique into their heads. During those four hours, his fingers had become so stiff from the cold that he continuously dropped his sword and had to begin demonstrating from the start all over again.

It had taken another two whole hours to rid himself of an annoyingly persistent golden haired son of Jupiter and convince him that _no_, Nico did _not_ want to go hang out with Jason in his cabin. Hence, his grumpiness as he went into the infirmary.

Nico cupped his hands together, brought them close to his face, and blew lightly to try and warm them up. He frowned when they remained pale and rigid.

"Oh my gods, you're really cold, aren't you?"

Nico's frown only deepened at the sound of Will's voice. He looked up from his fingers to see the blonde boy leaning against a wall near the entrance of the infirmary with a glimmer of amusement in his eyes. "Shut up," Nico retorted.

"You're shivering and everything! And woah, even your nose is re-"

"I said shut up, Solace." Nico's teeth chattered slightly as he closed the door to the infirmary behind him, feeling the beginnings of a headache begin to prod at the back of his head.

"Hey, are you okay?" Will asked in sudden concern, stretching out a careful hand to the Italian boy. One glance at the pissed off look in Nico's eyes was all it took for him to retreat his hand and drop it back down by his side.

Nico strode past him and Will was almost too caught up in the scent of sweat (probably from sparring), leather, and a slight undertone of cinnamon to notice how cold the other boy's hand was when he accidentally brushed by him. Almost, being the key word.

"Holy _shit_, Nico, you're actually freezing," Will blurted out.

Nico's shoulders rose up in an unapologetic shrug as he went to make his way to his usual seat by the file cabinet in the room. "Can't really spar when I'm wearing a coat."

Nico had his back turned to the son of Apollo, so he couldn't quite witness as Will had an internal breakdown. As the main healer of his cabin, Will had a tendency to freak out over any small illness that his close friends contracted. When Lou Ellen had gotten the swine flu a year ago, he'd just about smothered her with medicine and had almost quarantined her in the infirmary for months.

So in his mind, it was perfectly reasonable that he got worried when he felt how cold Nico was.

Nico remained oblivious as Will flitted about the room and grabbed stuff anxiously, peeking at Nico every now and then as if he thought that at any moment he could keel over. The son of Hades simply unlaced the heavy boots that he'd worn throughout the day and began to slip into the plain white trainers that every person working in the infirmary was required to wear.

A warm hand on Nico's shoulder startled him enough to make him glance up from his shoes to an unusually serious looking Will.

Nico watched as Will removed his hand and took off his own red sweater, frowning at the fact that he hadn't chosen to wear a thicker one that day.

"What are you doing?" Nico asked uncomfortably, subtly trying to turn his face away so that Will can't see the red that threatens to color his cheeks.

Will pushed the sweater into Nico's chest. "Here, put this on," the blonde boy said firmly, reaching into his pocket to pull out something that Nico couldn't see over the thick red cloth in his hands.

"Don't argue with me, di Angelo," Will started, when he noticed Nico's nose begin to scrunch up crossly. "I felt how cold your hands were earlier. I turned on the heater in here but it takes a while to start up, so this will just have to do for now."

Nico's brows furrowed in question at Will's words. He opened his mouth to try and refuse but sneezed instead. He rubbed his nose blearily as he warily appraised the sweater. Well, he _was_ cold…

Nico pulled on Will's sweater reluctantly, scowling at the way that the sleeves went well past his fingertips and he seemed to be practically swimming in the overabundance of fabric.

Will desperately wanted to coo at how cute Nico looked in his sweater that was three sizes too big, but he was more worried about his sneeze. His healer instincts kicked in instinctively and he quickly stuck a thermometer in Nico's mouth as soon as he had finished putting the sweater on, shushing the black haired boy when he made an indignant noise of protest.

At the same time that Will began to mentally keep track of the time so that he would know when to remove the thermometer, he took Nico's hand in his own.

Nico yanked his hand away as if it'd been scalded by boiling hot water. "What the fuck? Don't touch me."

Will chose to ignore the expletive and instead used Nico's distraction as an opportunity. He quickly plucked the thermometer from the black haired boy's mouth and scanned the numbers on the device. He was relieved to see that the temperature wasn't too high, maybe .5 degrees higher than normal.

He put the thermometer away behind him. "Checking your heart rate. Cold weather increases your heart rate which totally defeats the point of us spending so much time in here to get you less edgy and tense," Will explained, turning back around to face Nico.

Nico's mouth opened and then abruptly snapped close. He couldn't really argue on that point, either. He narrowed his eyes at the blonde haired boy and hesitantly held out his hand. Nico still hadn't completely gotten over his issue with being touched, but he was slowly getting better. Mostly because Will refused to make any exceptions for him when he was injured or sick, but it was better than nothing.

Once again, Will used one of his hands to hold Nico's hand steady while using the fingers on his other hand to feel for Nico's pulse point on the underside of his wrist. Will's hand seemed infinitely warmer compared to his own frigid hand and this sent the heat that Will transferred to him spiraling all throughout his whole body. Although Nico was sure that his face was turning pink, he couldn't turn away lest he bring attention to it.

Nico was determined not to let Will notice how his close proximity affected him, but alas, the son of Apollo picked up on it too quickly.

"My gods, Nico, your heart is beating really fast. Why would you go outside without a proper sweater on, I swear to the gods, sometimes you're really dumb-"

Nico interrupted the other boy by angrily yanking his hand away and punching Will in the arm. Hard.

"I'm fine," said Nico irritably. "I should've skipped training today but-" A sneeze interrupted Nico mid-sentence. He cursed in a combination of Italian, Latin, and English, venom lacing his words. Will was sure that Nico had just wished death upon him in at least three different languages, but he couldn't bring himself to feel too offended about it. Will simply watched on in slight amusement, feeling only somewhat bad for the boy.

"You know, it's really not _that_ cold outside," he piped helpfully, rubbing the arm that Nico had punched. He winced a little at the pain that bloomed from his arm. That would probably leave a bruise the next day.

Nico glared at the son of Apollo. "Just because you have internal heating doesn't mean the rest of us do."

"I guess it's okay. You look cute with red cheeks, anyway," Will said suddenly, with no hint of shame on his face.

Nico's face turned red in mortification. "What the _hell_, Solace," he spluttered out, looking away from Will's earnest eyes.

Will only beamed knowingly and went to catalog Nico's heart rate and body temperature in his file on the clipboard that Will always kept with him in the infirmary, while Nico struggled to force the flush of color out of his cheeks.

Nico walked back to his cabin later that day with a small smile on his face that he -annoyingly enough- couldn't seem to erase.


End file.
